Late Than Never
by AkaiNagi
Summary: Written for the SteelandSparks challenge “Always Hungry.” The Colonel’s nights are haunted, and the comfort is cold.


**Late than Never**  
Author:AkaiNagi  
Rating: Pg-13 for vague sexual references, Cheese and a big dose of ouch.  
Summary: Written for the SteelandSparks challenge "Always Hungry." The Colonel's night's are haunted, and the comfort is cold.

***

The dream is unpleasant, and I am glad to leave it.

Something is buzzing, very faintly in my ear, pulling me out of a dream-like, half-asleep state. And I am glad to be awake. I don't remember the dream. I never do. But it felt cold, and lonely, and filled with some kind of unnamed loss. I wake up feeling discontented and wanting.

And it's still buzzing, this annoying little bug. Beating its wings against my ear. Warm, damp wings. There must be more than one of them. Because they beat against other parts of me as well. A fluttering against my neck. Another against my hip. And the one by my ear is still buzzing. And the buzzing sounds like words.

"Are you gonna sleep all night, you bastard?"

The bug is blond, and definitely little, and has now begun to bite at me, worrying its teeth against my earlobe.

Maybe this is what I was hungry for, in that dream that I don't want to think about too much. A quick inventory reveals a pleasant stirring between my legs, inches away from where cool metal fingers thrum against my hipbone. It feels good. Understatement.

"You're back." God, I'm practically purring. How pathetic.

A rush of breath against my ear, as you let out a mock indignant humph. "I sure as hell better be. If this ain't me you've got a lot of explaining to do Colonel." The hand leaves my hip to map out my inner thigh with one cool metal finger. A sigh escapes against my will.

"So …" I feel your lips curve against my ear. Your voice is teasing, and a little predatory. "Did you miss me?"

I prepare a snide remark, but it's forgotten when your tongue and teeth find that spot on the back of my neck that you never fail to capitalize on. Much to your delight, I suppose, I can't hold the groan back. It feels like heaven. Absence may make the heart grow fonder, but abstinence does the same to the body. And much to my chagrin, my body desperately wants to get reacquainted.

And so you continue your teasing, tortuous, feather-light touch that creeps from the inside of one knee, up my thigh, closer and closer to the part of me that is starving for your attentions. Almost there. God, can't you go any faster? My breath sits in my throat, waiting, before it rushes out of me in a torrent of quiet obscenities when those evil digits skip over my desire entirely. They continue across stomach muscles that are pulled tight with the effort it takes not to flip you over and press myself against you, inside you. Anything that will stop the wildly churning hunger that's made it's home in my groin and in some deep, long neglected place in my chest.

"Jesus, Ed. You're killing me." My voice sounds strangled to my own ears. When did you become such a sophisticated tease? Your tactics in the bedroom have always resembled, more or less, your tactics on the battlefield. Brutally honest and totally without artifice, rampaging headlong towards your destination. I'm usually the one with all the artifice. Now I wish I could take back every statement I ever made about your lack of coital sophistication. I wouldn't mind right now if you rampaged over me like a miniature bull in a china shop, just as long as you, for God's sake, quit screwing around and give me what I need.

The predatory smile is back, smug this time, and it occurs to me that I must have said that out loud. The needy noise I make when you apply your nails to the sensitive buds on my chest increases that smugness tenfold.

"Tell me. Tell me you missed me." Smug, yes. But underneath is the need, honest and earnest, to hear the words.

I know what you want. As much as you would deny it to me or anyone else, that is what you hunger for. Always. What you want most when you come back from months on the road spent chasing your tail in an endless cycle of disappointment: the reassurance that you are wanted. Needed. Missed when you are absent. Wanted for yourself alone. You hunger to know that I hunger for you.

And I do. To distraction. It feels like it's been years, not weeks, since I've had you like this. Not for the first time, it occurs to me that I could say what you want me to hear. That I missed you. Not just this time, but every time you go away, leaving me to wonder, like some pathetic waiting wife, whether you'll ever come back. What would it cost me, to tell you not about the hunger in my groin, but the one in my chest? It wouldn't be a lie. And I would say it not just because it would get you to relieve the throbbing ache between my legs, but because it's the truth. And because, although we've been doing this for years, groping in the dark, with you searching for reassurances and me searching for someone to fill my own empty places, I've never said it aloud. And you've never asked, until now. Your fear of abandonment is so great.

So I open my mouth to make this monumental declaration. I'm willing to tell you now. And suddenly I'm overwhelmed with the need to tell you. To tell you that yes, Edward, I missed you, I want you, maybe even need you. And maybe even something else that I've never laid voice to, even to myself. All the reasons I had for staying silent now seem unimportant and petty. It would make you happy, I know, to hear it. Even though you might grumble and huff and tell me I'm getting sentimental in my old age. I open my mouth to say it, finally. But the words stop in my throat. Why won't they come? I'm ready to say it now.

I'm ready now.

But it won't come. And the breath in my ear, the warm wings, have turned cold. Icy breath flows over me, full of disappointment and regret, although maybe the regret is mine. And it is coming back to me now, as much as I fight it, as much as I don't want it, it comes rushing back and I am paralyzed. My declarations, years to late, sit frozen in my throat. And your cold breath washes over me, asking me why. Why couldn't I say it? Why couldn't give you what you desperately needed, what now I desperately want to give.

Too late, Colonel.

And now even your coldness is gone, and I wake to a reality that washes over me with a merciless vengeance. And the gaping hole inside me deepens. Widens. Expands until I think it will consume all of me. This need will swallow me whole, as I lie here, sweating, pathetically hard; desperately reaching out for the part of me that is no longer there. That weight in my bed, that breath in my ear. The part of me that disappeared, without a word, leaving nothing behind but a golden haired, pale-eyed reminder of my loss. The wrong Elric.

Some nights I curse you. Sometimes I hate you. It's your fault I have no peace. It's your fault I lost half my soul on the night I lost half my sight. You left me empty, waiting, wanting, and some nights I hate you for it.

But not tonight. Tonight I want you back. I want your curses, your rants, your blond hair against my skin and your nails on my back. I want you to empty my fridge and then complain that I never keep anything edible in the house. I want you to wake me up in the middle of a January night with freezing automail against my delicate places. I want you to steal the covers all night long. I want to hear you call me bastard like it's my given name. I want you to make love to me. I want you to fill all these empty voids in me that you left behind. I want to fill your empty places. I want to tell you all the things you were waiting for me to say, patiently, with a scowl on your face and bottomless hope in your eyes. Starving for reassurances, affection, affirmations.

Wanting. Waiting. Hungry.

Always.


End file.
